“It will come, it will come.” I am left to wonder what it actually entails. But I somehow trust that the it is good, desirable. A soft piece of caramel conglomerating in the very back of my mouth, its residue distinctively extensive.

I picked through that soggy potato salad, blurting, “but can two people start a relationship today and have it last that long?”

No beat skipped here. “If both people have the RIGHT values, of course,” she says with firmness.

Is she convincing herself? Or me? Is there something about convincing me that will strengthed her own resolve.

“You know, you have to just stick with it.” I find myself biting my tongue and twirling the rejected salad, which really isn’t a salad at all, around, around. “It takes work. Compromise.”

But how much? How much? I begin to form the question our loud to her, married “19 years” when the other matron extrapolates, “but it is often about not having everything now. It means going without sometimes.”

She got me there. I want everything now, and my hunger scares me. My desire for purposeful professional life, for intellectual stimulation, for a place in a family, for a hoe with roots, for “inner peace” and “adventure” both on the same day. I am overwhelmed by the want.

But know a lot about not having everything now.

Don’t you?

Isn’t that what life is about? Creating more of the things you desire, and striking a balance with coping with those unattained.